Delhi Confidential: High Gear

With Lok Sabha elections round the corner, the NDA government is working overtime to ensure it makes key appointments in educational institutions before the model code of conduct kicks in. The HRD Ministry, led by Prakash Javadekar, is learnt to have dispatched close to 30 appointment-related files to Rashtrapati Bhawan this month. This includes appointment of chancellors to central universities in Gujarat, South Bihar, Motihari, Sikkim, and appointment of vice-chancellors to HNB Garhwal University and Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow. The government is expected to announce a huge tranche of appointments, latest by next week.

Remembering Kasturba

As the nation celebrates the 150th birth anniversary year of Mahatma Gandhi, a special programme is being organised to remember Kasturba Gandhi on her 75th death anniversary on Friday. There will be a performance by Rajya Sabha MP and dancer Sonal Mansingh based on Natya-Katha “Kahani Kasturba Ki” to inaugurate the five-day festival ‘Ba, Bapu Evam Shilpkala’. The event, organised by Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts and Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra, will begin on Friday. It will showcase skills of 500 artisans and folk artists, who were identified through Hunar Khoj Yatra that began on October 2 last year.

Time To Thank

A day after the Cabinet decided to make two new Railway Board Members and encadre one Member post for Indian Railway Personnel Service, it was time for Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to earn some admiration from the officers for seeing the cadre-review process through. Officers were sending requests to meet and thank the minister on Wednesday. The officers’ federation even issued a letter thanking Goyal. This is because cadre review of Railways services had been stuck for years. Now Railways will have to make fresh norms for posting Members as well because two DGs have been turned into Member posts and existing norms say that to become to become Members, one must be a zonal General Manager first. There is no mention of DGs, which will have to be factored in.